Textile Printing

New Epson Monna Lisa industrial textile direct printer

Monday 05. October 2020 - With its Monna Lisa ML-8000, Epson announces the latest machine in its series of industrial textile printers. The entry-level model of the Monna Lisa series with a print width of 1.80 metres combines performance and user-friendliness to meet every requirement of the digital textile market for flexibility and sustainable textile production.

The ML-8000 is the new entry-level model in the Monna Lisa series with eight PrecisionCore printheads and a print width of 1.80 metres
With its eight newly developed PrecisionCore print heads, the ML-8000 achieves a print speed of 155 square metres per hour (600×600 dpi – 2 passes*1). The new Monna Lisa ML-8000 will be available during the spring of 2021 and will also be on display at the Epson stand at the World Textile Information Network (WTiN) trade fair, which will take place virtually between 15 and 30 October.
The ML-8000 is a next generation digital textile printer that delivers high print quality, productivity and stable operation with minimal downtime. The ML-8000 is also distinguished by its ease of use and low cost. This makes it the ideal printer for companies looking to enter the lucrative digital textile printing business.
The outstanding print quality of the ML-8000 is achieved by the specially developed Epson print heads. Microwave and LUT technologies[1], which are exclusively available here, reduce streaking and graininess of the print. An advanced new Multi-Layer Halftone System (MLHT) with randomly generated dot patterns reduces moiré formation caused by dot offset. Dynamic Alignment Stabilizer (DAS) technology also ensures reliably high print quality by controlling the control pulses of each print head chip. The Monna Lisa ML-8000 also enables consistent pattern reproduction in bi-directional operation by measuring the distance of the feed path, ensuring banding-free printing and high-precision fabric transport. The result is top quality even at high production speeds. It guarantees exact reproduction of even complex colour gradations with fine details and dense geometric patterns.
Stable operation with minimum downtime
The advanced cleaning mechanisms, including the wide range of automatic calibration functions, combine stable production with excellent user-friendliness. A lint blower removes lint from the fabric surface before it enters the print area. An ink mist extractor also prevents ink mist from sticking to the nozzle surface. The nozzle check itself detects missing dots indicating a nozzle blockage. In this case, the ink supply to adjacent nozzles is adjusted to maintain print quality and minimise print errors. An easily replaceable fabric wiper roller automatically wipes the printhead nozzles, reducing daily manual maintenance. As with the other new Epson large format solutions, even inexperienced users change the print head on the Monna Lisa ML-8000 themselves. Thanks to an automatic calibration function with camera, even non-technicians can do this in about 30 minutes. The Epson Remote Monitoring System (with 24/7 monitoring) enables a quick response to machine problems, further reducing downtime and service calls.
Simple operation
Ease of use is enhanced by a 9-inch LCD touch panel that displays the current printer status, operating instructions and regular maintenance procedures. Hot-swappable 10 litre or 3 litre ink tanks ensure uninterrupted production.
Environmentally friendly GENESTA ink
Epson GENESTA inks are available as acid, reactive, dispersion or pigment inks. They are ECO PASSPORT certified and meet globally recognised standards for environmentally friendly textile printing. In addition, the acid ink is bluesign certified and the reactive and pigment inks are approved by ECOCERT GOTS.
Monna Lisa – heart of a high-tech total solution
The Monna Lisa is the heart of a high-tech total solution – a complete solution for a textile production cycle. As with other Epson solutions, all important components are from one source. Print head, printing inks, pre- and post-treatment as well as technical support are matched to each other for the best possible results.